[RalphyS]

Quote: (Originally Posted by Steve)

Tonight Bill O'Reilly made an excellent point regarding the topic of how to handle the treatment of these terrorists once they are captured. He said that sometimes in times of ware inhumane actions result in the safety of millions of lives. For example, we dropped the bomb in WWII. That was a very inhumane thing to do but it resulted in winning the war and saving thousands of more lives by ending the are.

Just thought I'd throw this idea / point of view out there for discussion.

You could argue about the succes of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You state they saved thousands of lives, and yes, they probably saved tens of thousands of lives of allied soldiers, but they killed, if I remember correctly, something like half a million civilians. I know war is a dirty game, but you could plead for the option to let it be fought by the soldiers, that's why we here the emphasis with bombings always led on 'military targets'.

There was no doubt, that at the time of the atomic bombings, Japan was fighting a losing battle, the bombs expedited the end of the war and avoided an invasion of Japan, but was it really worth the lives lost ???

On the other hand, this tragedy also has shown us what nuclear bombs really can do and I think it was a learning moment in the history of mankind. If we hadn't seen the effects of these bombs at that time, I do not think that the cold war had remained cold.

In other words, I do not think that the end always condones the means.